Date of Award

Spring 2017

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science (BS)

Advisor(s)

Al Greco

Second Advisor

Luke Kachersky

Abstract

In recent years, the growth of college textbook prices has far outpaced the growth of other consumer prices. With the concurrent growth in the popularity of web-enabled devices among college students (such as laptops, tablets, and smart phones), the frequency of textbook piracy has also risen significantly. As textbooks continue to increase in price relative to ever-increasing college costs, the question for the college textbook publishing sector becomes: how much longer is this business model sustainable? In the current market, the average college student spends nearly $1300 dollars per year on books and supplies – a cost of over $5000 over the course of a four-year education. The aim of this thesis is to assess the popularity of college textbook piracy, especially in the business/account/finance/marketing textbook space and propose suggestions based on our findings. Current, preliminary research of college students in Florida shows that 66% of those surveyed did not purchase a course’s textbook at least once; that 26% dropped a course due to lacking the textbook; and 20% failed a course owing to not owning the text. I propose that going forward into the next 5 to 10 years, the college textbook industry will collapse unless serious measures are taken to make textbooks more affordable and available as e-books – currently, efforts are already underway in California and Rhode Island to provide free-to-use open educational resources to supplant expensive textbooks. In this thesis, I seek to show that unless the industry moves to more accessible (and not to mention more profitable) model of subscription-based e-books, the industry will be bound to fail.

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